Pro 1 dives into summer sales with Pinnacle buy

ROMEOVILLE, Ill.—Protection 1 is getting into the summer-sales market by buying some of the assets of Pinnacle Security, one of Utah's leading door-knocking companies.

Protection 1, a traditional-model security company based here that now bills itself as “the largest full-service provider of business and home security in the U.S.,” announced in a news release that it has purchased “select assets from Utah-based Pinnacle Security, including certain proprietary IT infrastructure and software.” It also said it had bought Pinnacle's headquarters in Orem, Utah.

A Pinnacle spokeswoman referred Security Systems News to Protection 1 for comment. Repeated requests to Protection 1 for comment were not answered by SSN's deadline.

However, Protection 1 President and CEO Timothy Whall said in a prepared statement that he has been impressed with the “work ethic and discipline” of those in Utah-based summer sales and noted that “the seasonal selling model, which Pinnacle uses, has proven to be successful for more than 10 years.”

He said that Protection 1 sees the Pinnacle buy “as an opportunity to take something that has proven success and integrate it with an established brick-and-mortar model to create year-round career opportunities for highly educated and driven leaders across the country.”

Among the assets that Protection 1 acquired is Pinnacle's customer relationship management system, according to the news release. Protection 1 CIO Don Young, in a prepared statement, called it “one of the most advanced I have seen.” He added, “By leveraging this asset within our current infrastructure, it will put us at least 18 to 24 months ahead of some of our IT plans.”

Pinnacle President Jared Chappell and Steve Zolman, Pinnacle president of sales, will be joining the Protection 1 management team, the news release said. It said the two, both founders of Pinnacle, will lead “a new residential division at Protection 1, which will focus on personalized, one-to-one selling of home security products and services.”

Chappell said in a prepared statement that he and Zolman consider it “a great opportunity” to combine “our sales know-how and recruiting skills" with Protection 1's service and industry expertise.

The acquisition is yet another dramatic development for Pinnacle, which in October sold 93,000 accounts—about half of its total account base—to Monitronics and forged an agreement for future sales.

Then, about a month later, Pinnacle laid off some of its staff, saying it was rightsizing to keep the company in a position of strength for the future.

This is not the first time that a traditional-model security company has paired with a summer-model company.

Pinnacle and Devcon Security, which both are owned by San Francisco-based Golden Gate Capital, in 2011 announced a shared services agreement. But Golden Gate now is looking at the possibility of selling Devcon, a traditional security company based in Hollywood, Fla.